President McKinley

by Robert W. Merry

  Not surprisingly, the anti-imperialist Godkin saw no problem with this. If the canal were strictly a commercial enterprise, he wrote in the Nation, why worry about joint control or neutral management? Only if it were seen as a vehicle of imperialism would it matter that America dominate the waterway. But Godkin’s views were a tough sell in a country increasingly beguiled by the notion of American expansionism. Americans wanted the canal, and they wanted to own it.

  Of more immediate concern to McKinley in early 1898 were signs that his wait-and-watch approach to Spanish diplomacy was facing severe tests. On January 20, Spain’s minister to Washington, Dupuy de Lôme, called on William Day at the State Department and unleashed a brazen challenge to the United States. Nothing kept the Cuban insurrection alive, he said, except the pro-rebel attitude of the American people. He praised McKinley for his “courage” in resisting that dangerous outlook, but the insurgents were propelled by hopes that the president ultimately would bend to public pressure and give them official U.S. recognition and support.

  The minister attacked Fitzhugh Lee for predicting the failure of autonomy and advocating U.S. annexation of Cuba. He complained that Navy Secretary Long’s planned fleet maneuvers near Cuba could lead to clashes with Spanish vessels in the vicinity. He decried a recent House floor speech by Robert Hitt of Illinois, chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, which he defensively (and erroneously) viewed as a warning of possible U.S. intervention. All this, he said, belied U.S. assurances that the new Spanish policy would be given a chance to succeed. Then came the clincher: if America truly wanted Spain to succeed, it must curtail the New York Junta. “The unfriendly attitude of the United States keeps things alive,” said Dupuy. But even in the face of that, he expected Spain to have the Cuban situation firmly in hand by May 1. This turned out to be a diplomatic gaffe that McKinley quickly would exploit.

  Day asked what would be the Spanish response if General Lee asked for U.S. ships to protect U.S. citizens and property in Havana. That would be regarded as incipient intervention and an unfriendly act, replied Dupuy.

  “This, if sent to protect our Consul and American rights and interests?” Day pressed, a bit incredulous.

  “Yes,” replied the minister.

  Four days later Day summoned Dupuy back to the State Department for a briefing on the president’s response to his complaints. Ignoring the minister’s more provocative allegations, the president merely said he continued to hold firm on the policies outlined in his December Annual Message, that he still wished to give Spain “a fair opportunity” to test its autonomy scheme, and that he didn’t see any reason for contentions in the meantime. As to the matter of his sending a naval vessel to Havana, the president believed that the discontinuance of friendly U.S. naval visits, adopted in the Cleveland administration, had been unfortunate, and he saw no reason why U.S. ships shouldn’t visit the ports of Cuba in a friendly way—particularly given Dupuy’s prediction, unwisely tendered, that peace was near at hand.

  “It is the purpose of the President,” said Day, “to resume these visits, and that very soon.”

  Dupuy allowed as how he also thought the discontinuance of friendly naval visits had been a mistake, thus acceding implicitly to McKinley’s decision. Day said McKinley wouldn’t hesitate to send U.S. vessels to protect American lives and property whenever necessary, but he felt it preferable to send the vessels as a routine action, unrelated to any necessity, and he had “now determined upon that course.” The minister had no choice but to accept the decision. He then reported Spain’s interest in sending a commissioner to Washington to explore reciprocal trade agreements related to Cuban goods. The idea, it seemed, was to find areas of agreement between the two countries as they continued to grapple with the nettlesome Cuban matter.

  After the session, Day rushed to the White House to brief the president, who promptly summoned Navy Secretary Long. He ordered Long to send the battleship Maine, at Key West, Florida, to Havana for a routine friendly visit and to inform General Lee that it would be coming. Later that afternoon Day summoned Dupuy back to the State Department and apprised him of the president’s decision. The minister’s complaints and contentions of January 20 had backfired. The president shunned them in signaling unmistakably that the burden of peace rested with Spain, not the United States. Then he upped the ante by ordering a battleship into Spanish colonial territory.

  The next morning at eleven, the 324-foot, 6,682-ton Maine, with her four 10-inch guns and half-dozen 6-inch guns, “came gliding into [Havana] harbor as easily and smoothly as possible,” Lee reported to Day. The ship, under the command of Captain Charles Sigsbee, “was a beautiful sight,” added Lee, “. . . and has greatly relieved (by her presence) the Americans here.” Sigsbee received a cordial welcoming visit from a representative of Vice Admiral José Pastor, the Spanish captain of the port, as well as an officer from the Spanish flagship in the harbor. Spanish forts surrounding the harbor fired salutes, “and all the ceremonies called for by naval etiquette had been observed,” reported the Washington Post. Although Lee described palace authorities as “rattled” by the arrival, no anti-American incidents or unrest emerged. For good measure, though, Spanish authorities reinforced police protection around the consulate.

  McKinley continued to believe things were moving in the right direction, as he sought to emphasize in casual conversation with Dupuy de Lôme at a White House diplomatic reception on January 26. When the men were ushered into the State Dining Room for coffee and cigars, the president motioned for Dupuy to join him at a small table. Between puffs on his cigar the president said, “I see that we have only good news.” With Congress at least temporarily subdued on the Cuban question and Spain seemingly intent on complying with U.S. requirements, he told Dupuy, “you have no occasion to be other than satisfied and confident.” Despite Dupuy’s concerns about American public opinion, he told his government that the president’s words represented a “sincere declaration” of his patience.

  But in the Spanish capital Woodford could see that public opinion was “still very much excited,” although Moret and other officials exhibited extreme cordiality and seemed genuinely anxious to consummate the proposed commercial treaty among Spain, Cuba, and the United States as a demonstration of goodwill.

  Then came an abrupt change in the tenor of Spanish diplomacy. On February 3, a messenger delivered to Woodford the Spanish government’s official reply to McKinley’s December 20 note outlining U.S. policy toward Cuba and Spain. Written by Foreign Minister Pío Gullón e Iglesias, the reply dripped with dismissive language that essentially told the United States to butt out. America’s mere proximity to Cuba gave it no right of intervention or even diplomatic pressure, said the statement, and Spain recognized no U.S. prerogative to prescribe a termination time for Spain’s Cuban war. Besides, American refusal to deal with the New York Junta contributed to the war’s longevity far more than anything else. Spain took umbrage at U.S. “hints of a change of conduct,” implying possible military intervention, and it would continue its “firm resolution” to preserve its sovereignty over Cuba “at every hazard.”

  In a conversation with Moret, Woodford called the Spanish government’s reply “a serious mistake.” He then wrote McKinley that Spanish authorities had become pessimistic about their ability to suppress the rebellion in any timely way either through autonomy or arms. A respected New York Herald reporter told him that the Spanish ministry felt it had agreed to all the concessions it could possibly make without endangering its own power and the ruling dynasty. “They will do no more,” said the reporter, “and will fight if what they have done does not secure our neutrality.”

  Then on February 9, Dupuy de Lôme informed his boss, the Spanish foreign minister, that Hearst’s aggressively pro-Junta New York Journal shortly would publish a letter he had written to a friend in Havana with “expressions humiliating to the President.” His position as minister to Washington, he said, was about to become “untenable.” True enough,
publication of the letter set off a political firestorm in America that would test the diplomatic mettle of both countries. It seems a clerk at the Spanish embassy in Washington had seen the letter when it lay unopened and unguarded in an out-basket. He informed Junta officials, who alerted allies at the Havana post office to intercept it there when it arrived. It was sent to Junta officials in America, who spent several weeks authenticating it before leaking it to Hearst’s Journal. The story hit the streets of New York like a bomb explosion, then reverberated throughout an incensed America.

  No one could figure out what had possessed Dupuy to violate diplomatic etiquette so egregiously or to act so recklessly in sending his letter through regular mail channels. Written shortly after release of McKinley’s Annual Message in December, Dupuy’s letter decried the president’s “natural and inevitable coarseness” in repeating newspaper criticisms of General Weyler. It also labeled McKinley as “weak and catering to the rabble, and besides a low politician who desires to leave a door open behind himself while keeping on good terms with the jingoes of his party.”

  Worse, Dupuy invited his friend to “agitate” the matter of a reciprocal trade agreement between Spain and the United States, but “only for effect” because he was bent on using the trade negotiations “to make a propaganda among the Senators and others in opposition to the junta.” In other words, he certified his own government’s hypocrisy in its seemingly solemn diplomatic efforts in behalf of a bilateral trade treaty. It was difficult to see how the two countries could carry on any kind of serious discussions on any topic if Spain stood exposed as merely going through the motions for ulterior purposes.

  Characteristically McKinley reacted dispassionately to the insult, declining to respond publicly and assuming his diplomats would handle it appropriately. But U.S.-Spanish tensions intensified when Madrid sought to finesse the matter by casually accepting Dupuy’s resignation and declaring the matter closed—all before any Spanish official had given Woodford the courtesy of an audience so that he could demand, as would be customary in such circumstances, Dupuy’s recall. When Woodford finally did see Gullón e Iglesias, the minister of state airily informed him that Dupuy’s resignation had been “asked and accepted.” This was untrue. The government had taken no action indicating censure of Dupuy and in fact had accepted his resignation in a letter praising his conduct as minister in Washington.

  With Americans seething with indignation, Judge Day at the State Department put the matter in perspective with a statement: “The Spanish government will be expected to disclaim all responsibility for the utterances of the recent Spanish Minister. If Minister Woodford’s dispatches indicate that this disclaimer has been made, the incident is closed. If not, it is still open.”

  In Madrid, Woodford expressed his government’s chagrin in a letter to Gullón and the next day received Colonial Minister Moret, his closest associate at the Spanish court. Moret expressed deep regret and sought Woodford’s counsel on what the Spanish government should do. The American minister unloaded on Moret, decrying Gullón’s misrepresentation and saying his letter gave him “an open door for correcting the possible mistake.” The letter “left to your Queen and to her Ministers to decide . . . what . . . she as a lady and you as gentlemen ought to do.” But he added that, if Spain sought to avoid a full diplomatic corrective, he would resign his post and return to America, “stating why I do it.” He added, “I cannot remain accredited to a Sovereign or have official relations with a Ministry who could attempt to [avoid] the duty of a just explanation by pleading or suggesting the technicalities of diplomacy.”

  Not surprisingly, Madrid quickly issued an apologetic statement, disavowing any sympathy for Dupuy’s unfortunate words and committing Spain to Cuban autonomy and to trade reciprocity. In a letter to McKinley, Woodford said the Spanish note “was not all that I could have wished, but it was much more than we could reasonably expect, considering the excited state of popular and even official feeling here.” It seemed that Spain simply couldn’t extricate itself from the political, military, and diplomatic vise in which it was locked. The Nation, noting Dupuy’s reference to “poor Spain” in his offending letter, suggested those two words constituted “the best comment one can make on the spectacle of a nation of such a splendid past, fallen on such evil days.”

  — 17 —

  Path to War

  “HISTORY IS BEING MADE AT A RAPID RATE”

  As darkness descended upon Havana on the evening of February 15, 1898, dense clouds shrouded the evening sky. In the sultry and still air, the USS Maine barely tugged at her anchor. A quiet descended over the ship after bugler C. H. Newton, following the 9 p.m. two-bells signal from the ship’s clock, played “Taps,” signifying lights out. At about 9:30 Lieutenant John Blandin, watch officer, ambled along the port quarterdeck, positioned himself near a ten-inch turret, and cast his gaze across the placid water to the city lights. He laughed mildly when Lieutenant John Hood approached and asked with mock sternness if he was asleep.

  “No,” replied Blandin, “I’m on watch.”

  Suddenly a deafening boom rocked the ship as a fiery blast ripped through its hull. Three hundred yards away on the harbor pier, an evening stroller named Frank Weinheimer, visiting from New York City, heard a crunching sound. He turned toward the Maine as a “terrible roar” shattered the night. Immense shards of steel, cement chunks, and wood splinters shot up and out in all directions. “It looked as though the whole inside of the ship had been blown out,” recalled Weinheimer.

  Aboard the Maine, Commander Sigsbee was completing a letter to his wife when he was jolted by a “bursting, rending, crashing sound or roar of immense volume.” The vessel shook, then listed to port. He rushed to the main deck, where billows of smoke impaired breathing. Light from a fire amidships revealed wreckage everywhere. The Maine’s two stacks had collapsed, its bow shattered into a mass of twisted metal. He could see that his ship shortly would rest on the harbor floor, and the “white forms” he saw bobbing on the water would multiply. Within an hour, with waves flowing across the poop deck, Sigsbee managed to get some survivors off the ship and onto a gig. He and the other survivors found refuge aboard a nearby U.S. steamer called the City of Washington and a Spanish man-of-war, the Alfonso. Sigsbee ended up on the City of Washington.

  After ensuring that his wounded men and officers were being well tended, Sigsbee descended to the captain’s cabin to write a report to Navy Secretary Long: “Maine blown up in Havana Harbor at nine forty tonight and destroyed. Many wounded and doubtless more killed or drowned. Wounded and others on board Spanish man of war and Ward Line steamer.” It was approaching 1 a.m. on February 16 when Sigsbee’s cable reached Washington, via Key West. A Navy courier delivered it to Long’s residence, where his daughter, just returning from a social outing, woke up her father to give him the news. After consultations with hurriedly summoned naval subordinates, Long sent an officer to inform McKinley. The president, awakened by White House staff, emerged from his bedroom in a dressing gown. After reading the note, he muttered in a tone of bewilderment, “The Maine blown up! The Maine blown up!” When McKinley later appeared for breakfast, Myron Herrick, visiting from Cleveland, chided him for being late and for the stern look upon his face.

  * * *

  THE STERN LOOK betokened not just the president’s anguish at the carnage. The Maine disaster would transform the political and diplomatic landscape. Whatever its cause, it threatened to fuel the fires of U.S. war agitation, engulf McKinley’s leadership of incrementalism, and upend his carefully crafted plan to end the war in Cuba and expel Spain from the Caribbean while avoiding hostilities with that beleaguered country. As news reports pegged the possible death toll at 250 or more (it eventually hit 266), members of Congress rushed to condemn Spain as either the perpetrator or an abettor of those who committed the crime. The notion that it could have been an accident seemed inconceivable to many, and their ire wasn’t assuaged by expressions from Madrid decrying the expl
osion and offering official condolences.

  McKinley sought to counter this attitude. He approved Long’s decision to convene a naval board of inquiry and labored to keep the nation tranquil until it issued its report. Throughout the day of February 16, he summoned Cabinet members and numerous congressional leaders to urge calm and patience. “My duty is plain,” he told his friend from Indiana, Senator Fairbanks. “We must learn the truth and endeavor, if possible, to fix the responsibility. The country can afford to withhold its judgment . . . until the truth is known.” The White House issued a “semi-official statement” saying the president doubted the Maine’s destruction resulted from an overt act. Cabinet officials, emerging from a hurriedly called White House meeting, told reporters the same thing. “Every representative of the President,” said the Washington Post, “has thus far been sedulously careful to say nothing that could in any way connect the Spanish government in the remotest degree with the disaster.”

  But the agitators weren’t mollified. The president’s own assistant naval secretary, Theodore Roosevelt, wrote to a friend, “Being a Jingo . . . I would give anything if President McKinley would order the fleet to Havana tomorrow.” He privately attributed the Maine disaster to “an act of dirty treachery on the part of the Spaniards.” New York’s influential newspapers, particularly Hearst’s Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s World, embraced that view as well. Told by his night editor that the Maine explosion would make page 1, along with “other big news,” Hearst shot back, “There is not any other big news. Please spread the story all over the page.” Soon Hearst and Pulitzer were competing to determine whose paper could be the more bellicose—and sell more papers in the process. On the evening of February 17, the Journal emblazoned a headline across its front page that read, “WAR! SURE! MAINE DESTROYED BY SPANISH; THIS PROVED ABSOLUTELY BY DISCOVERY OF THE TORPEDO HOLE.” There had been no such discovery, but that mattered little to Hearst.